Reader Comments (487)

More for Phil Clarke, whose ignorance. poor man, we must help to lift. He thinks 100% renewable is wunderbar. Sadly, the grids can't come with it, as he would know were he to do any research.

http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.TvfQiW5O.dpbs

"And for a few minutes last Pentecost Monday afternoon – a holiday that saw very low national electricity demand – wind and solar provided almost enough power to cover all of the country’s electricity needs, reported Die Welt here. Leading Greens cheered, and proclaimed that coal and nuclear had not been needed for a time. But they cheered “too early” writes Die Welt’s business journalist Daniel Wetzel, pointing out that market and technical conditions became dangerously precarious and that in total “electricity represents only 21% of Germany’s total energy need.”

While Germany’s installed solar and wind energy may be able to get fairly close to fulfilling total electricity demand for a few minutes in rare instances that weather and demand conditions are just right, their share of total primary energy is still depressingly measly. Die Welt puts it all in true perspective:

More for Phil Clarke, whose ignorance. poor man, we must help to lift. He thinks 100% renewable is wunderbar.

Jeez, it just goes on and on. Which part of I think we need a ramped up nuclear sector. is giving you the problem? (me, this thread May 27, 2016 at 3:49 PM)

The point of these periods in countries like Germany and Portugal where they achieve 100% of demand from renewables for a short while is that they represent milestones along the transition from dirty to clean energy.

" they represent milestones along the transition from dirty to clean energy"

No they don't.

If you have a load of random things there will be periods where they sum to a maximum. If that co-incides with a minimum in demand that doesn't really demonstrate anything other than sometimes the peak co-incides with a demand trough.

Other times the sum can take any other value, including 0, and you still need to satisfy your demand, whatever value it is.

So says Jeremy after citing a post about the early years of the Central England Temperature series which had a warming trend of 0.4C/decade.

Here's a fact for you Jeremy, the CET is unreliable before around 1775, readings were taken indoors, with unreliable instruments (check out the date the mercury in glass thermometer was invented) missing readings infilled from Utrecht(!) and temperatures inferred from weather observations. Temperatures were rounded to the nearest 0.5 or 1C so the idea that you can derive a decadal trend to even 1dp is a hoot.

The cooling did not begin 500 years ago, it began 5000 years ago at the end of the Holocene Optimum. The Minoan and Mediaeval Warm periods, and the LIA are part of that long term cooling. You share golf Charlie's delusion that these periods are distinct events with different causes, rather than part of a single long term cooling trend.due to changes in Earth's orbit.

First we have PC going on about the methane emissions from fracking:27/5 10.05 am "there are risks around fugitive methane emissions and groundwater contamination . . . The chief objection is that retrieving and burning the stuff pushes up greenhouse gas emissions, methane during extraction and CO2 in combustion, and torpedoes any chance we have of meeting our obligations under the Climate Change Act . ."

PC, in trying to twist around and imply that the so-called consensus is not CO2 obsessed, while simultaneously blaming skeptics for focusing on CO2, is performing high level mental gymnastics. However Phil's further implication that the climate obsessed are backing nuclear power is mental gymnastics at an Olympic medal level. Truly PC is gifted

It is you and Capell who are engaging in doublethink. It would take more time than I have spare for this to sort out all the misrepresentations of what I actually said and think. It is not difficult: if you are assessing the performance of a model that uses several forcings, then you need to include all those forcings.

And as I also made clear, I speak for myself, not any group or movement, however I am far from the only one concerned for the environment who believes we need nuclear.

I like nuclear, but there is only enough uranium to see us to 2100. Ultimately we will be mostly renewables for lack of any long term alternative.

May 30, 2016 at 7:53 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

No. There is a vast amount of Uranium waiting to be mined by extraction from seawater. I have seen the process described as nearly economic under current conditions. I used to make an occasional organic ligand that was used industrially for extraction of transuranic isotopes in nuclear reprocessing. The chemistry was rudimentary. If someone pays me enough, I can design them better ones.

I like nuclear, but there is only enough uranium to see us to 2100. Ultimately we will be mostly renewables for lack of any long term alternative.

May 30, 2016 at 7:53 PM | Entropic man

I don't accept the 2100 expiry date for nuclear, but if true, will over 80 years be long enough to make wind and solar Reliable?

Oil was going to run out by 2000, but despite increased usage seems to be going on for longer. Who knows how much shale gas there is? Hopefully now that further exploration and testing is likely in the UK, we will know better.

The point of these periods in countries like Germany and Portugal where they achieve 100% of demand from renewables for a short while is that they represent milestones along the transition from dirty to clean energy.

May 30, 2016 at 10:32 AM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke====================================================================Biomass is just plain stupid. I get why you support it, Phil. And if nobody can afford this "clean" energy, Phil? 40,000 died of cold this winter just gone in the UK alone - because they couldn't afford to heat their houses. That must make you feel great.

Ha! EM's straw men are building a 'power station' up the road from me that will burn ... straw

So far the balance sheet shows costs of squillions to build the place and to dig twenty miles of trenches down country lanes to cable it into the nearest grid access with - so far - zero revenue. Building work appears to have stalled, but what do I know ... maybe it's supposed to look like a steel skeleton.

Once it gets going we'll presumably have streams of artics loaded with straw bails (straw being almost 'free', diesel for the trucks not so much) delivering 24/7.

I have no idea about the energy density / efficiency of burning straw bails (help?), but I imagine there's a fair amount of arm waving comes into the calculation. But naturally - because it's ever so 'clean' and 'sustainable' - there's almost certainly a subsidy sploshing around in there somewhere.

Straw from wheat, was great animal bedding, asborbed some of the urine and faeces, and then once shovelled/dozed out and piled up, rotted down to make good nutrient rich manure, with soil texture improvements from the otherwise fairly inert straw.

Barley straw makes animals and humans itch, and was only fit for burning with stubble. Some large houses/stately homes etc, converted to running central heating systems burning barley straw, but this took a lot of time, machinery and storage space, and the 'free' fuel was not so cheap after all.

Attempts to generate free heat, from free fuel, for commercial sale, takes a lot of investment. The cost of getting straw bales to the combustion site can be huge, and it takes a committment from farmers to produce straw from their fields, not cabbages or pop festivals. It is NOT a no-brainer!

Agreed and I did say his estimates were out of date but I just reported his figures from the book which can be verified easily. I am sure we can make much more optimistic predictions ^.^In his defence he did say that fracking was not included and the same for Methane Hydrates.

Dung, there is also breeder-reactor technology. Bottom line: We have enough conventional nuclear fuel to last us for aeons.

EM says he likes nuclear power but, frankly, I really do doubt the honesty of his assertions because I recall him saying that it was only because he regarded it as a least-worst option. Green advocates know that by every political trick and lie where necessary, they have successfully stymied nuclear-power development in the West for the better part of half a century.

So some of them think they can be polite about nuclear-power in order to concentrate their fire-power (pun unintended) on fossil fuels, knowing that it will take us ~20 years to get nuclear power back up to speed. They do not want cheap energy, of any variety, for the entire human race because they regard human existence as the problem. But not their own existence of course, or that of their putative grandchildren. Just other people and their children who must suffer today so the Entropic Men and Phil Clarkes of this world can have clear green playing field for their pure green spawn.

The point of these periods in countries like Germany and Portugal where they achieve 100% of demand from renewables for a short while is that they represent milestones along the transition from dirty to clean energy.

There is no pattern of CO2 rising and leading to increased temperatures. The pause/hiatus has caused so many papers to be written to explain it away, that there is consensus that it has occurred, but no consensus confirming why

Does this mean the CO2 theory is not credible, and/or the mechanism of research funding in climate science, is broken?

Ayla, you could be the first climate expert to win a Nobel Prize, and have a Number 1 record. (but you need to retune, and beat your tambourine, to a different cycle, to harmonise with the adjusted lyrics)

Golf Charlie. Is it not oxymoronic for a climate scientist of the modern era to win a Nobel Prize? Doesn't theory have to be proven by experiment, or at the very least by reality, before the prize is awarded?

So how can Ayla, luscious as she undoubtedly is, be in contention?

A number one hit is also doubtful. Lyrics are much too relevant and understandable. Might work for Eurovision, if we're still in. Null points anyone?

The tuning and message of my berceuse are both performance-ready. It's just the helium pitch that does not render well on text. Your evident ignorance on musiclimatic matters is forgiven on this one account.